MY 2017 GRAMMY PREDICTIONS

Tomorrow night is Music’s Biggest Night™ as the Grammys take the stage with performances by many of the biggest names in pop music today including Adele, Bruno Mars, The Weeknd, Chance The Rapper, low-key everyone knows but yet to be officially confirmed Beyoncé, Lady Gaga with Metallica, and Katy Perry will perform her new single Chained To The Rhythm, plus other performers.

Prior to those performances, most of the awards will be given out in a separate ceremony tomorrow afternoon, save for a handful given out on the air. As in previous years (2016, 2015, etc), I will make my predictions on who will win in some key categories.

As in recent years, this year’s award results have the potential to be political, but now the stakes are much different with a new president, which may or may not have an impact on who the award winners are. In recent years, I expected Kendrick Lamar and Beyoncé to win key awards that ended up going to safer and, in most cases, predictable choices. With Formation having prime placement in the Record and Song categories, a win for that could be seen as a statement of acknowledgement from the voters, both for the song itself and what it represents, and also for seemingly avoiding awarding black artists and urban music in these categories by giving it to a track as bold as Formation is.

Like most categories where both are present, this is pretty well down to Adele and Beyoncé. I enjoy 25 more but Lemonade is more interesting and on that basis, I think it should win. 25 isn’t undeserving but it would be anticlimactic if it won this award – and it likely will.

Repeat of the last two, except now we have Bieber‘s Love Yourself in the equation. Ed Sheeran won this category last year with Thinking Out Loud and he’s become a Grammy favourite so thanks to his involvement, it’s definitely in the running. 7 Years shouldn’t be here but the odds are terribly against it anyway.

Two countries artists against two rap artists against an EDM artist. If we go by the assumption that within-genre competitions cancel each other out, the Chainsmokers got this one. I think Chance The Rapper might edge it out though.

This is becoming a strange category, likely due to the lack of reasonably known and reasonable decent rock music in recent years. I’m sure there’s plenty of solid rock songs to choose from but for some reason, this category chooses to pick two live recordings (one of which satisfies the Alabama Shakes requirement), a controversial Beyoncé selection (that I don’t really disagree with), and one of the few rock songs to actually get heard by a large audience. There’s only one correct pick and that’s Blackstar but they’ll get it wrong.